home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=93TT0352>
- <title>
- Oct. 11, 1993: To Our Readers
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Oct. 11, 1993 How Life Began
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
- To Our Readers
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>By ELIZABETH VALK LONG
- </p>
- <p> President
- </p>
- <p> Joelle Attinger remembers precisely the moment when she decided
- she wanted to become a journalist. At 17, Attinger, our newly
- appointed chief of correspondents and TIME's first ever female
- top editor, read an interview of North Vietnamese General Vo
- Nguyen Giap by famed Italian reporter Oriana Fallaci. "She had
- such a wonderful way of bringing people out," says Attinger.
- "That she was a woman made me say, `This is possible.' "
- </p>
- <p> Attinger, who until recently oversaw our domestic bureaus, began
- her career at TIME in 1973 as a secretary in the Paris-based
- Europe bureau. When she wasn't clipping news wires, she was
- mastering her craft, conducting interviews for the magazine
- with everyone from Pierre Cardin to the head of the Spanish
- Communist Party and encountering some not so subtle sexism along
- the way. (Attinger remembers telling a male colleague who covered
- foreign affairs that she hoped to become a diplomatic correspondent
- one day. He responded by inviting her to become his secretary.)
- Ultimately, though, her insight and inquisitiveness won out
- over her clerical capabilities, and she moved quickly to correspondents'
- posts in Washington and Boston before heading the New York bureau,
- where her cover story on the rotting Big Apple left city officialdom
- smarting. Along the way, she and her husband Bernard deftly
- handled the tough balancing act of raising a family: daughters
- Celia, 9, and Abigail, 6.
- </p>
- <p> As chief of correspondents Joelle oversees 63 reporters deployed
- in 29 cities across the U.S. and around the world. Even in a
- job where the unexpected is the expected, there are still certifiable
- crises to contend with, like that frantic phone call from a
- suddenly strapped-for-cash reporter trapped in Mogadishu. But
- when chaos reigns and deadlines hover, Joelle calms. "You can
- always count on her to get you out of a mess," says Cathy Booth,
- Miami bureau chief. It was Joelle who advised a reporter in
- Abu Dhabi who discovered there was a contract out on his life
- (he is safe and out of Abu Dhabi). Colleagues also laud Joelle's
- ability to shape and define stories; she was instrumental, for
- example, in directing TIME's award-winning coverage of the B.C.C.I.
- scandal.
- </p>
- <p> At the helm of TIME's News Service, Joelle will continue to
- help direct first-rate coverage each week. Her goal is simply
- stated: "What I care about is generating the best possible journalism."
- We don't doubt that she will.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-